Read too young, perhaps.
A summer afternoon, a thunderstorm, no television.
A raging ocean outside.
A dusty old trunk of books, alone in my grandmother’s attic, waiting for the moment I could return to the beach.
At the very bottom.
Under La Bicyclette Bleue.
Below Agatha Christie and Georges Simenon.
Suddenly Her.
Suddenly O.
It wasn’t that cover.
But the mystery was already there.
O? Like me?
O? Who is that?
O like Ophélie?
O like an imprint.
O.
A book that became my comfort object.
My secret, unsettling refuge.
The voice of O has never left me.
It reshapes itself—like a river, like a shoreline—in my mind whenever it wanders, whenever it wakes.
O when I write Ophélie Deslys.
Searching for the same freedom.
Between light and shadow.
Desire and flesh.
O. I add a D. Out of modesty.
Out of delight.
Because desire is feminine too.
I write from O,
but I do not write O.
Because I would never be done rereading it.
Nor rewriting it.
Story of O, Pauline Réage
The somewhat accidental discovery of this book, just as your senses were about to awaken, was probably the catalyst for your passion for writing, and I imagine you secretly savored its pages.
When your innate talent for writing and your sensual emotions converge, heightened by reading this masterpiece of erotic literature, the genesis of your writing unfolds quite naturally.
Here, your entire personality is laid bare, Ophélie, for the pleasure of your readers.
This first, wonderfully written text hinted at a substantial body of work to come. And as I write these lines, you are already on your fourth book, with the fifth imminent.
May this dream come true continue…